February 12, 2011

European Hydrogen Storage

Prof. Duncan H Gregory is on a roll. Not only is he a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow (Scotland), and landed a job as Scientific Consultant with the startup Hydrogen Horizons, but he has recently teamed with European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS).

EADS Innovation Works recently issued the press release Nanotechnology could pave the way for hydrogen fuels where they announce their receipt of funding from the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network - part of the UK Technology Strategy Board - and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). This funding will allow the team of EADS IW, Hydrogen Horizons, and University of Glasgow to pay a student to carry out a four year PhD project on replacing the "current" PCT patent-pending Hydrisafe metal hydride material with a more advanced material. The release also describes the current Hydrisafe storage material as being the commercially available lanthanum nickel hydride (LaNi5H6) - certainly not very experimental at all! So did Hydrogen Hoirzons recently apply to patent a commercially-available material?

A read of the Hydrogen Horizons PCT application A hydrogen containing tank shows a fairly weak patent application. Dr. Fredy Ornath, CEO of Hydrogen Horizons, is the only listed inventor, and he provides no data/description/claims on what really counts - the composition and performance of the hydrogen storage material! In other words, it is basically a heat transfer patent.

Wanting to find if they really have something in the pipeline, some Googling uncovered this presentation from 3 years ago:

Now it looks like some double-dipping is going on - many of the slides in this Applied Hydrogen Inc. presentation match those in the previous link to a Hydrogen Horizons presentation. Plus, many of the founders and technical people are the same in Hydrogen Horizons and Applied Hydrogen Inc. I hope that Prof. Gregory and EADS know what they are getting into...